Dr. Iris Elliott:

I think the Deputy for her questions. Regarding the work we are doing on Article 31 and the independent monitoring mechanism, there is an independent monitoring mechanism under Article 33 so we looked to guidance around the operation and implementation of Article 33 as well as Article 31. On the guidance available, the Fundamental Rights Agency in 2018 said about setting up a monitoring system for the implementation of the UNCRPD that there needed to be a system to assess the impact of legislation and policies. There is a need to develop indicators and benchmarks and also to develop and maintain databases. That provides some degree of a framework. As the chief commissioner mentioned, we have been working for over five years trying to establish a national data infrastructure but also work at a European level so there is coherence across member states and comparability in terms of disability data. There are many different areas of work that we are engaged in within that kind of framework.

One of the things we have done that has been very important for the commission is to convene stakeholders and name who we think needs to be involved in the work around strengthening and developing a national data infrastructure that would support our monitoring role. The audit CSO colleagues conducted in 2020 of publicly available datasets found that only 22.4% of those included disability and often did so in a limited way that was not disaggregated. People are just asked about disability and not necessarily impairment. The focus is really on a human rights model of disability and a functional approach to disability. We have been doing an awful lot of work in this area.

We have not done a formal assessment at this stage but in the absence of UNCRPD monitoring opportunities at the UN, we have been preparing a series of reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. We made a submission to the Human Rights Committee on civil and political rights last year, to the Committee on the Rights of the Child this year and next year we will be doing it for the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. We have found that the data are exceptionally limited. The national data infrastructure is weak and incomplete. It is insufficient for us to do our job as the independent monitoring mechanism but it is also insufficient for the State to operate and implement the convention. In speaking of that significant failure, I do not want to understate it. We see this as a real moment of opportunity for Article 31. Without being overly optimistic about it, the fact that we are now developing an equality data strategy in this State, and will be the first European member states to do so, is a huge opportunity. People are looking to Ireland for what we will do around that. We would have a strong disability focus and the equality data strategy is extremely important so we have a strong disability data focus in all of the national equality strategies and particularly the successor to the national disability inclusion strategy, which was very limited. It is also important where there are opportunities for legislative reform. I would stress that. As part of our role as the independent monitoring mechanism, we repeatedly call in our legislative observations and submissions on legislative reform for very close attention to be paid to data.

We will, of course, find that some actors are very proactive and positive around equality data, but it is not sufficient to be resting on goodwill in quite an ad hocway. We need a mandatory provision around equality data. Self-evidently, there is an opportunity in the equality legislation reform, but I think we need provision in areas such as policing. We have had particular engagement around the lack of disability data in policing data. I will send through to the committee an exceptionally strong concluding observation from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, CRC, on equality data that was published last week. It sets out what the UN is now saying the Irish State needs to do about data, including disability data. The CRC also published some very strong recommendations on disability, which I will also share with the committee. There were over 20 concluding observations relating to disability that hopefully will be relevant to the broader work of this committee.